1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for a software provider of enabling a software-acquiring entity to arrive from an existent first signed piece of code at a second signed piece of code. The invention also relates to a method for a software-acquiring entity of arriving from an existent first signed piece of code at a second signed piece of code.
2. Prior Art
Today's typical Java applications tend to be very large, consisting of even thousands of classes. Moreover, as the prevalent webbrowsers executing Java code require different Java packaging and signing formats, code is usually distributed twice, thereby further increasing the application's size. This increased complexity leads to ever more programming errors to become evident only when the programs are already rolled out to the customers. This necessitates bug fixes to be sent to the customers. As the Java programs are shipped in cryptographically signed containers, so far, the complete Java containers, possibly containing thousands of classes, need to be re-distributed, even when only one single class file therein has been changed.